SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/5/2023 10:40 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-5 “The
Person who Initiates Discipline”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:15b
Message of the verse: “go and reprove him in private;”
We have learned at the beginning of this chapter
what the will of God is for our lives as Peter states in 1 Pet. 1:16, and we
can be sure that Peter got this quotation from Leviticus 11:44. “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Jesus came to earth to do the will of His
Father and now we can see in this verse what the will of the Father is for us,
to be holy like Him.
Let
us now look at James 4:8-10 “8 Draw near to God and
He will draw near to you. Cleanse
your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be
miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and
your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He
will exalt you.” As already
mentioned it is God’s will that His people be holy, and so the purpose of
discipline is to promote holiness by purging and purifying the church.
MacArthur adds “The Word, the Spirit, and God’s people join in working for the
purity of the church. Believers act in
Christ’s behalf when, with humility and according to scriptural guidelines,
they discipline fellow members who persist in sin.”
We
now want to look at a second requirement for effective discipline and that is
zeal, and this can be seen from our Lord it the two times that He cleared out
the temple of God and ran the money changers out as they seemed only interested
in money. “He made a scourge of cords,
and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He
poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and overturned their tables; and to
those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making
My Father’s house a house of merchandise” (John 2:13-16). We can see that Jesus’ holy zeal for the
purity of His Father’s house would not allow Him to stand by and watch it being
desecrated. MacArthur adds “Willingness
to confront sin in the church is manifested in righteous zeal to uphold God’s
name and holiness and in a corresponding unwillingness for them to be stained
and dishonored.”
Next
we look at a third requirement for effective discipline is personal
purity. Now if a believer is not
concerned about his own purity he will have no obedient willingness or
righteous zeal to help protect the purity of the church. He will not be effectively used by the Lord
in helping others deal with their sin if he is unwilling to deal with his own
sins. MacArthur adds “His concern about
other Christians’ sins might be strong, but it will be judgmental and
censorious, not humble and loving. To
such believers the Lord says, ‘Why do you look at the speck that is in your
brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye,’ and behold,
the log is in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of you own eye, and then you will see clearly
to take the speck out of your brother’s eye’ (Matt. 7:3-5).”
The
truth that we have been learning here is that when a church sincerely and
humbly moves out to enforce holiness and purity within its membership, by
virtue of that very movement it is in the process of self-purification, because
believers who genuinely desire the purity of the church will first confront
their own lives and determine for the Lord to bring purity there. Christians can become ministers of holiness
only as they themselves are holy, something we have learned from both Peter’s statement
and the statement from Leviticus.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: In the little prayer meeting we have for
revival in our country after our Wednesday night Bible study and prayer meeting
we are always praying for revival in our own lives, then our families life, our
churches lives, and then our country and world.
I believe that this follows what we have been learning in this rather
long section we have been looking at as we began this New Year.
My
steps of Faith for Today: Continue
to memorize and begin to meditate on the verse I am memorizing in order to have
this become a part of my life.
1/5/2023 11:09 AM
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